BOUND BY CONSENT: CONCEPTS OF CONSENT WITHIN THE LEATHER AND BONDAGE, DOMINATION, SADOMASOCHISM (BDSM) COMMUNITIES A Thesis by Anita Fulkerson Bachelor of General Studies, Wichita State University, 1993 Submitted to the Department of Liberal Studies and the faculty of the Graduate School of Wichita State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts December 2010 © Copyright 2010 by Anita Fulkerson All Rights Reserved Note that thesis work is protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. Only the author has the legal right to publish, produce, sell, or distribute this work. Author permission is needed for others to directly quote significant amounts of information in their own work or to summarize substantial amounts of information in their own work. Limited amounts of information cited, paraphrased, or summarized from the work may be used with proper citation of where to find the original work. BOUND BY CONSENT: CONCEPTS OF CONSENT WITHIN THE LEATHER AND BONDAGE, DOMINATION, SADOMASOCHISM (BDSM) COMMUNITIES The following faculty members have examined the final copy of this thesis for form and content, and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts with a major in Liberal Studies _______________________________________ Ron Matson, Committee Chair _______________________________________ Linnea Glen-Maye, Committee Member _______________________________________ Jodie Hertzog, Committee Member _______________________________________ Patricia Phillips, Committee Member iii DEDICATION To my Ma'am, my parents, and my Leather Family iv When you build consent, you build the Community. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my adviser, Ron Matson, for his unwavering belief in this topic and in my ability to do it justice and his unending enthusiasm for the project. I want to thank my Ma'am for Her support, love, dedication, and size nine motivation when needed: this would never have been completed without Her help. Major thanks go to Nate (aka - Chaos) for his stellar editing, his wonderful suggestions and insight on this from the beginning. Half of this is yours, Pup. You earned it. And finally, my undying gratitude goes to the wonderful people in the Leather Tribe and BDSM Communities who were so willing to be interviewed and who were so supportive of this endeavor. vi ABSTRACT This study is a qualitative examination of the definitions, beliefs, practices and the importance of consent within the Leather and Bondage, Domination, Sadomasochism (BDSM) communities using the experiences of those who identify as members of those communities. Through interviews with fifteen self-identified practitioners of BDSM/Leather, the research attempts to define consent, identify the importance of consent, and how consent is practiced within those lifestyles. It also seeks to address some of the commonly held misconceptions concerning the BDSM and Leather communities held by those outside the communities. The research attempts to establish how members of the communities define and practice consent in both their sexual and everyday lives. The standard definition of consent given was an "informed agreement between persons to act in an activity which is mutually beneficial for everybody involved." (I1) Additional elements to the basic definition included the necessity of a sound mind (I2 & I3), that the agreement is made willingly, free from coercion and outside influence - either from another person or from mind altering substances (I1,I2, I3, I6, I14), and that consent must be given by both the dominant and submissive partners. Also, consent for the Leather and BDSM practitioners interviewed included an understanding by all parties about what was expected, what the parties were and were not willing to do during the course of the interaction (the scene), and where consent stopped. At its most basic level the idea of consent was stated as "the ability to say yes." (I13) vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page 1. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1 2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE..............................................................................................5 2.1 History......................................................................................................................6 2.2 More Recent Studies................................................................................................7 2.3 Impact of Current Beliefs - Diagnostics Manuals....................................................9 2.4 Impact of Treatment and Psychological Services Interactions..............................12 2.5 Misconceptions, Reality and the Law....................................................................14 3. METHODS........................................................................................................................18 3.1 Procedure...............................................................................................................19 3.2 Participants.............................................................................................................20 4. RESULTS..........................................................................................................................23 4.1 Definition and Practice of Consent........................................................................23 4.2 Consent Withdrawal...............................................................................................24 4.3 Consent and Negotiation........................................................................................27 4.4 Consent and Length of Relationship......................................................................28 4.5 Trust.......................................................................................................................30 4.6 Consent Boundary Violations................................................................................32 4.7 Responses to Consent Violations...........................................................................33 4.8 Consent Versus Abuse...........................................................................................34 4.9 Additional Findings...............................................................................................36 5. DISCUSSION....................................................................................................................37 5.1 Implications............................................................................................................37 5.2 Limitations.............................................................................................................39 5.3 Future Directions for Research..............................................................................41 5.4 Generalizations and Grounded Theory..................................................................42 BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................................................46 APPENDICES...............................................................................................................................50 A. Lexicon.......................................................................................................................51 B. BDSM/Leather Activities Check List.........................................................................59 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION BDSM - bondage, domination, sadomasochism. The Leather Scene (please see Appendix A for lexicon terms). When the average person hears these terms, visions of women bound and writhing in chains, or of fierce men in studded leather towering over cowering weaker ones are often the first images that come to mind. Visions of severe injury and blood, of crying and apparently non-consenting submissives being abused by sadistic and unfeeling dominants are images provided over and over again in films, fiction and even in the news. However, such images are not the norm within the BDSM and Leather communities; in fact, they are the unwanted exception. While the advent of the internet has assisted in providing more access to correct information on the realities of these communities and to likeminded individuals interested in such activities, it has also proven a double edged sword. The anonymity provided by the internet that can be freeing to someone curious about Leather or BDSM but embarrassed due to the "taboo" nature of that interest. It also, however, can provide a fertile hunting ground for predators that prey on those same curious individuals. Police are faced with the realities of men like John E. Robinson the self named "Slavemaster" who met women in on-line S&M chatrooms, lured them in and then killed them (Hickey, 2002, p. 169) or Cameron Hooker who kidnapped a young female hitchhiker, held her captive for seven years as a sexual slave and claimed at his trial that her servitude had been "consensual" as she had signed a "contract" to stay several years into her imprisonment (Ramsland, 2008). Too often, the only view of the insular BDSM and Leather communities available to those outside the communities comes from fiction or from sensationalistic crime reports 1 concerning abusive individuals such as Robinson and Hooker, who are mistakenly identified as members of the BDSM or Leather communities. While an abuser may employ similar activities - bondage, sexual